1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to domestic appliances and, more particularly, to control consoles used on domestic washing and drying machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Control consoles known in the art generally provide a series of punched-out apertures to facilitate mounting of control devices thereto. Typically, the punch outs are specially designed to receive a specific control device. Therefore, for any particular control console, each control device can be mounted only at the location which corresponds to its specially designed aperture.
Hence, in the prior art, if it is desired to re-arrange the control devices, as normally is the case among the various models of an appliance, it is necessary to produce a new control console with a correspondingly different arrangement of punch-outs formed therein. Therefore, it is common for each of the various models of appliances to have its own custom control console. Since each appliance model in the prior art must have its own control console, there is a high cost associated with this aspect of producing the various models.
Moreover, the control mounting apertures provided in the common control consoles tend to require a large number of independent fasteners to mount the control devices thereto. This leads to longer assembly time, increased manufacturing costs and, ultimately, increased final product cost.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a control console which includes control mounting apertures which are adapted to interchangeably receive various control devices and thereby enable a single control console to serve in several appliance models. Also, there exists a need in the art for a control console which allows mounting of the control devices thereto with a minimum of additional fasteners being required, reducing assembly time and cost.